Mike's Observations

This is inspired partly by my thread about elevators. I'm going to post stupid things that I see people doing throughout the day. And while this thread was inspired by the elevators, it was prompted by something I saw three times today.

You know those buttons you press at crosswalks to let the thing know that you're there and want to cross?

Do those buttons make the lights change faster during regular pedestrian hours?

The reason I ask is because I see this all of the time: Some person comes to a busy intersection to cross the road. Say the lights on the north/south road just turned green and the pedestrian wishes to cross on the east/west road. The person will walk up and press the button. Perhaps a few seconds will pass and the person will press the button again. The button continues to be pressed, over and over again, until the light changes.

Keep in mind that I'm in the LA area, with that famous traffic everywhere.

Today, I saw this happen three times. The third time was this teenage girl who stood there with her arm out, pressing the button continually. She was talking to her friends and pressing the button.

So, do those buttons make the lights change faster?

Those buttons are how teh government gets yuor fingarprints.

Are you actually asking whether those buttons make the lights change faster? Im confused. No, do not make the light change faster if there are also cars going the same way. However, it will make it change faster if there is no cars, that way it knows somebody wants to cross. Same as the censors in the road.

Pressing it a bunch of times does nothing. However, its fun to do and little things like that make waiting easier. Sure, I could easily let that me annoy me, but why the fuck do I care?!

I remember reading somewhere that those buttons are a relic from the 70's and don't actually do anything anymore

Psx: thats only in some areas. Each municipiality is responsible for their function.

But I can attest, as a regular pedestrian around the UCLA area, that they definitely do influence the traffic light patterns. At some intersections.

If I am at a crosswalk (Strathmore & Gayley, for those familiar with the area), and I dont press the button, the lights will not change for an entire cycle. In other words, hmm...

Like, from the car's perspective, it is, green/yellow/red/green/etc.
At the reds, we can walk.

If nobody presses the button, then it skips that yellow/red and just keeps with the green. So its not that the button makes the lights change faster, it just keeps it on its normal cycle.

This system makes sense, actually, why give people the walk signal on a busy intersection if nobody is there?

But I also read an article in the Daily Bruin about how the city is gradually phasing out the use of these buttons. So in some parts of LA they work, in some parts they dont. It's really a crapshoot.

Here in WV they apparently think crossing the road is too hard. We have these big blue boxes with giant buttons on them, a little hand graphic showing you're supposed to push it. Push it, and it announces "wait x minutes to cross High street!" then it starts to slowly beep. x being however many minutes are left in the current cycle. When ready, it beeps vigorously and the little walking guy signal flashes. All lights go red, and only pedestrians can go.

Yes, crossing the street here is very difficult, especially since there's just oh so much traffic in West Virginia...

This is like seinfeld: the thread

I'm a rebel, I haven't paid attention to a traffic light, much less a crosswalk, in longer than I can remember. Not getting hit by cars is nice but actually getting where I'm going sometime this year has its appeal too. It helps that I don't tend to live in the most traffic-heavy section of the world, though.

James

has anyone ever been ticketed for jaywalking? I've never seen a cop waste time on that down here in Houston.

Yeah, in Chicago I knew a few people who got jaywalking tickets. In all cases it was when the cops would come out and direct traffic in the intersections during rush hour.